Lucille

When I first started getting serious about motorcycles I was riding a beautiful early 70's gold CB 750 that I bought from my brother. At the time I was working the graveyard shift at a grocery store, and one morning when I walked out it was gone.

Of course, in my mind some tweaker stole it for drugs and that was the end of that (and it was). Naturally, I was pissed, but the reality was that even though I like the Honda, I had really wanted a Harley to begin with and I only bought the 750 because it was so cheap. So with being without a bike again I began to scour the Little Nickel until I ran across an ad for a "chopped" Sportster.

I didn't know anything about bikes but I went to this guy's house and he took me to his garage, which was very dark (he had covered all the windows with old newspapers). There, sitting in the middle of the floor under a single dim bulb sat this bike, that to me at the time, represented everything I thought cool about choppers. It was long, had chrome, and most importantly, it was a real Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

The dude (who was the brother of a patch holder) hit the starter button and she fired right up. It was loud and she smoked like hell. He blipped the throttle a couple of times and let her settle into a soothing idle. I was just mesmerized. After a bit he flipped the kill switch and we stood there letting our ears adjust to the sudden quiet and taking in the fumes from the exhaust. Without riding it, I told him I would take it.

It was beginning of a long and healthy love/hate relationship. I put a lot of miles on that bike and learned a lot of what it meant to be a biker during that time. And, I also put a ton of money into her (three motor rebuilds). In looking back, I thought that's just what you did with Harley's but now I know that it was a combination of me not knowing how to take care of the bike, coupled with trusting unscrupulous shops (death to false bike builders).

Needless to say, whenever I wasn't riding her she was locked up tight. And when I went to work, I brought her inside the store. I would wait outside until closing time at 9 o'clock and then I would wheel her in, whether customers where still in there or not. In looking back, it must have seemed strange to people, but to me it was just what we did, and no one ever gave me shit about it either.